What causes lag in Ultima Online?

Stratics Veteran

I've played UO for many years and have never really cared about this because it was never a big issue. However, I'm now living in South Korea and UO is all but unplayable (Siege Perilous & Atlantic.) My question is, what are the factors that determine lag in this game?

I have a pretty fast internet connection (100mb/s down) so that shouldn't matter. I've played other games out here like Rift and Diablo3 and experience zero lag. In fact, I gained about 20 FPS in Rift with zero ability lag. However, with UO and it's awesome graphics (I love the classic client) it's just completely unplayable on my favorite shards. It's the two step three second lag.

Stratics Veteran

Lag has nothing to do with graphics. It is to do with network latency and how long it takes for data to traverse from your computer, through the Internet's routers and to the remote server (and back again). Many factors can determine this, but it is mostly down to distance between you and the server you're communicating with (which is why it is recommended to play on a shard which is physically closest to you), what medium you're using to connect to the Internet (satellite connections will face longer delays due to the manner in which it operates, for example) and what path the traffic takes and the subsequent congestion at that moment on said path (this is often down to which ISP you're using, their routing paths, etc.).

The speed of your Internet is also not necessarily relevant to the ping you experience. Bandwidth is a measure of the capacity of the connection and latency (ping) reflects the delay which, if excessive, will cause lag.

Some people use the term "lag" erroneously when experiencing frame rate issues, but this is nothing to do with network latency. That is more do to with issues such as the machine's hardware, rendering capabilities, perhaps background tasks, etc.

By the way, in case you were unaware, several people have been experiencing latency lately which EA apparently addressed the other day. I believe some users are still having problems, however, so there may still be factors at their end causing your issue.

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